Advice for Founders with Salami Abolore
Meet Salami
Salami Abolore is the Founder/CEO of Riby; a digital banking & financial services platform for cooperatives, trade/business groups & salary earners in company groups. He enjoys playing board games and watching documentaries.
In my personal life, the small change that has made a big impact is making a decision to be very far away from mediocrity. The decision remains with me till today and you will never find mediocre anywhere I am or in my place of work. Its either you do your job or try your absolute best to get the job done, nothing short will be acceptable.
Professionally, building relationships is a small change that has made a big impact on my life. It is good to build your network and invest in solid relationships that are built on trust, faith, and love. Relationships can be personal or professional and the reason Riby is growing as a business is not that we had the most fabulous idea or that we are the best company but because we invested in the right relationships that are based on trust and integrity.
Capital is extremely important when starting a company and you can get it from revenue, debt, equity investment or grants. The other type of capital that a lot of people miss out on is relationships and how these relationships can translate to revenue. It is very important to build solid relationships as it will help you on the startup journey.
It is also very important to not underestimate or overestimate your business as both of them are extremely dangerous. It’s advisable to take it one step at a time but also not waste time to let your mind grow fully.
Also, don’t fall in love with the solution, fall in love with the problem. Having a solution to a problem is good but that’s not the real thing because it can change over time. The solution to power failure today is solar but some people are already thinking that the solution might be mobility.
The first thing I have learned and I lean on daily is integrity in relationships. Every day people question your intent, your ability to deliver and sometimes you question yourself too. Integrity is extremely key and it’s the foundation in relationships. I find myself dealing with it a lot these days especially as we expand as a company.
The second thing is helping other people succeed. You need to know what other people’s problems are and be willing to help them succeed even as you are trying to achieve your own goal as a founder. Sometimes that might involve compromise and doing things you didn’t think you have to do but that’s just life.
I usually don’t like living in the past or the future, I like to live in the present but one thing I wish I knew much sooner is that in life everything is so big yet so small. Life is so simple and elementary that if you can just step back a bit, a lot of the things that worry us will not worry us at all and we will just take life as it is and be grateful whether your company fails or succeeds.
I’ll recommend The richest man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason and I think it’s a book that is extremely fundamental to life especially financial life.
Also, the Art of war by SUN TZU is a very good book founders should read. I’ll also advise they follow Gate’s notes because Bill Gates talks about a lot of valuable books that people should read.
Mistakes are a very funny thing because you learn from them and you move on quickly. How quickly you move on from your mistakes is really important than the mistakes themselves. Once you’ve made them find the best way to correct them either in a short term or midterm or sometimes in the long term.
One mistake that I made was doing a craft without being a master of the craft. I did not have a CTO in the very early days of Riby. It is important that if you want to build a surgical center you need a surgeon partner because he understands the craft and if you want to build a law firm ensure that you hire the best lawyers or get a lawyer as a partner. I’m sure you get the gist now.
I think the day as a unit of time is more important. I think it is very valuable because we operate by the day and it is one thing you can measure. It’s hard to say a week or a month because anything can change in a day. Warren Buffet says don’t try to be a magician just achieve three things every day. Do three key things every day and you are fine.
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